Breaking news on smart meters in Michigan and around the globe, including the latest DTE and Consumers Energy tactics and how they affect you.
See www.SmartMeterEducationNetwork.com for more information.

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

Ted Koppel says there is an 80-90% certainty that the grid will be
brought down after a cyberattack. He is storing enough food and water to
last for two to three months. The government and the nation are totally
unprepared. This is an excellent interview with Diane Rehm. Listen to to the interview.

Friday, November 13, 2015

Face-to-face conversations with
legislators are critical when you want to get a bill passed. One way

to begin to make contact with
your state rep and other people in your community is to go to the
representative's coffee hours. All reps hold coffee hours (they might be at any
time of day, and often will be on weekends) so that they can hear their
constituents' concerns. These
coffee hours are held in your district, so that you don't have to drive to Lansing! Find your rep's coffee hours here.

At the coffee hour, let your rep and everyone else there know you would like
your rep to sponsor the Analog Choice Bill. Tell your rep and all the people in the room what
the bill is about. Give them a few facts about smart meters.
Most people in the room won't even know about smart meters! This is a good way to begin to inform not only the
rep, but the people in your community.Costs are number
one on people’s minds, so we recommend making that a strong point. Please see our website page, The High
Economic Costs of Smart Meters and our newest blog post regarding the
actual costs of installing opt-out meters versus customers retaining their
analog.

Be sure to brings some flyers with you, and hand them out to
each person in the room. I would recommend bringing 2 or 3 flyers: the flyer
about the bill and then either the Ticking Time Bomb flyer and/or the
Unexplained Illness flyers. Find the bill flyers on the Opt-Out Legislation
page and the other flyers on the Flyers and Petitions
page.

Anyone who shows interest, get their phone and email. Tell them we will send
them a newsletter with more information and updates about the bill. Urge them
to follow up with the legislator via a phone call.

Once your legislator says they are supportive of the bill (this might be after
several meetings), ask them what they
can do to help get this bill passed. Reps sometimes blow us off
by saying there's little chance due to the huge industry lobby. Well, they are our representative. Are they going to
let the energy lobby influence them?

Keep going to coffee hours over and over. That is what this woman did. Bring
some new information each time.

Talk to your legislator at the end of the coffee hour. Ask
for a time to meet with them privately to talk more about the bill. Make sure
you are educated enough to do this. If you are not, our website will give you
most of the information you need to make a convincing case.

Bring along the DVD Take
Back Your Power. Ask your rep to watch it. Tell them you will come back
in a month to get it back from them, as it is your only copy. We have the DVDs
of this powerful movie for
sale on our website.

To learn when your rep's coffee hours are, go to the Legislative Coffee Hours site. The best
thing to do is get on your rep's mailing list. They usually announce the coffee
hours there.

Please let us know how the meetings
went--who your rep is, what district number, and what the rep had to say and
the level of interest in the room. Give us your ideas about
what strategies are effective!

Thursday, November 12, 2015

As usual, industry is being careful with our money. DTE smart meters have a depreciable life of 20 years. DTE analog meters
have a depreciable life of 43 years! Depreciable life means they get to
claim tax write-offs for it. Many analog meters have been on homes for
over 43 years.

In Congressional testimony, a utility industry experted stated that smart meters have a 5- to 7-year lifedue to necessary or desired
software upgrades. Industry expert states: “These devices are now
computers, and so they have to be maintained. They don’t have the life
of an existing meter which is 20 to 30 years [actually more like 50-80
years]. These devices have a life of between 5 to 7 years. And so the
challenge that the industry has is making sure they maintain their smart
grid environment, not neglect it.”